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Como dice el artículo de CNN, ha pasado antes. "There are some viruses that we still do not have vaccines against," says Dr. David Nabarro, a professor of global health at Imperial College London, who also serves as a special envoy to the World Health Organization on Covid-19. "We can't make an absolute assumption that a vaccine will appear at all, or if it does appear, whether it will pass all the tests of efficacy and safety. Como por ejemplo, el VIH o el Ébola. He empezado a llamar al covid-19 como Ébola Jr . Links:  We May Never Get a COVID-19 Vaccine |  What happens if a coronavirus vaccine is never developed? It has happened before

Al inicio de la cuarentena, uno de mis planes era sobrellevarla fumando. Pero entendí que de enfermarme de coronavirus, sería contraproducente el hábito de la nicotina.  Al parecer hay una línea de investigación que indica que la nicotina podría tener efectos antiinflamatorios y evitar la "tormenta de citocinas" (citoquinas). While no conclusions can yet be drawn,  Konstantinos  Farsalinos' prevailing hypothesis is essentially that nicotine has certain anti-inflammatory effects. The most severe COVID-19 symptoms seem to come from an overreaction of the body's immune system known as a "cytokine storm." During that storm, the immune system targets an infection, say in the lungs, and they can become inflamed, leading to difficulty breathing. Nicotine, Farsalinos reasons, might be able to at least lessen that intensity. Link:  Why Are Smokers Being Hospitalized Less Often From Coronavirus?

What is going on? How can it be that stocks are soaring when the economy is crashing? Link:  Stocks Are Recovering While the Economy Collapses. That Makes More Sense Than You'd Think

La paciente de covid-19 había trabajado por alrededor de 30 años en el hospital al que solicitó su ingreso, el cual le fue negado. Gatewood drove herself to the Beaumont Hospital emergency room in Farmington Hills on March 18, where she requested a test and was sent home. “They said she wasn’t severe enough and that they weren’t going to test her,” said Kaila Corrothers, Gatewood’s only child. “They told her to just go home and rest.” Le faltaban sólo dos años para retirarse y recibir su pensión. Link:  Black Woman Dies From Coronavirus After Being Turned Away 4 Times From Hospital She Worked at for Decades

Teatros cerrados, chicas cantando en las calles (luego de que los teatros cerraran)... The news is full of“unprecedented” situations, but Billboard is 126 years old, and we’ve seen it all — including the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed an estimated 675,000 Americans and shut down public gatherings in many big cities for weeks or months. A look at the magazine’s archives shows that the issues facing the entertainment business at the time seem frighteningly familiar. (Back then, Billboard covered it all — Broadway to burlesque, circuses to state fairs.) History may not repeat itself, as the saying goes — but it often rhymes. Link: Billboard's Coverage of 1918 Pandemic Reveals Eerie Similarities

Esto más que llamarsa "fatiga por cuarentena", debería expresarse como hartazgo por cuarentena.  Public health experts say any data showing widespread public resolve or cooperation beginning to wane is noteworthy. Because this is the first U.S. pandemic in 100 years, they don’t know how long people are willing to tolerate cabin fever for the greater good. They say they’re not surprised, however, that a slide occurred in a week that saw the first highly publicized challenges to such orders by protesters and President Trump, who tweeted his support to “liberate” states from shutdowns. The White House also released federal guidelines that week for states seeking to reopen their economies. And a growing number of governors, including in Texas, Minnesota and Vermont, set dates for when they planned to gradually lift restrictions. Pienso en un headline: "Rompe cuarentena por hartazgo" Link:  ‘Quarantine fatigue’: Researchers find more Americans venturing out against coron...

Aunque es poco probable que lean el libro Florence Under Siege: Surviving Plague in an Early Modern City , en el London Review of Books Erin Maglaque escribió sobre la publicación.  From the point of view of the Sanità, the poor were constitutionally incapable of acting in the greater interests of the city. Tracing early cases to understand the spread of the outbreak, Francesco Rondinelli, a contemporary historian of the plague, placed the blame on poor people who had selfishly visited friends and family despite the risk of contagion. He told the story of the wife of a baker who went to nurse her daughter in Trespiano but returned home sick herself, and then spread the plague among her household, resulting in the deaths of seven others. The wife of a builder went to nurse her sick sister. When her sister died, the woman took the shirt she had been wearing at her death and gave it to her daughter. This ‘loving action had cost her dearly’: she, her husband and their daughter all...

As governments around the world pour money into their economies to cushion the blow from the coronavirus, Mexico’s president is going the other way. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador insists that past bailouts worsened problems and is refusing to implement significant stimulus measures even if it means suffering for small businesses and millions of Mexican workers who are at risk of losing their jobs. Link:  As World Spends Heavily on Virus Fight, Mexico’s Leader Bets on Austerity

Esta serie que vi en The Atlantic la comparto porque es apabullante el paralelismo visual que comparte India con México.  Link:  India Under Coronavirus Lockdown

One question, answered: Do I really need to wear a mask whenever I’m around people? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that Americans wear masks outside the home primarily to protect the community, not themselves. A simple cotton mask might not stop much from coming in, but it can stop up to 99 percent of particles from exiting into the air. Countries that have universally committed to wearing masks have seen clear drops in their infection numbers. In the United States, wearing masks for the public good could effectively halt the virus: Models suggest that if just 80 percent of the population protects those around them, the rate at which the coronavirus spreads could plummet to a stop. Link:  The Real Reason to Wear a Mask  ( Visto en el newsletter de The Atlantic )

White House officials have touted the possibility of a V-shaped recovery as soon as this summer, pining for a swift rebound once businesses reopen on a staggered basis. But some economists say a W-shaped recovery is increasingly likely, in part because creating a vaccine is likely to take at least a year and millions of Americans and businesses are piling up debt without an easy ability to repay it. “Pretending the world will return to normal in three months or six months is just wrong,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. “The economy went into an ice age overnight. We’re in a deep freeze. As the economy thaws, we’ll see the damage done as well. Flooding will occur.” Link:  There’s a growing possibility of a W-shaped economic recovery — and it’s scary

In the summer months, U.S. health officials need to persuade Americans to think ahead to the fall and the importance of getting flu shots. That way, public health officials can minimize the number of people hospitalized from flu. Getting a flu vaccination, Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, “may allow there to be a hospital bed available for your mother or grandmother that may get coronavirus.” Link:  CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating

“Funeral directing is spiritual, holy work,” he said. “The families entrust in us their most prized possession: their loved one. And that is sacred.” Link:  The Mortuary Science Professor Who Came ‘Out of Nowhere’ to Help N.Y.C.

Chinese doctors in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in December, say a growing number of cases in which people recover from the virus, but continue to test positive without showing symptoms, is one of their biggest challenges as the country moves into a new phase of its containment battle. Link:  Recovered, almost: China's early patients unable to shed coronavirus

But as this simulation suggests, and scientists have argued, droplets can travel farther than six feet. And small droplets known as aerosols can remain suspended or travel through the air before they eventually settle on surfaces. This is how they could disperse over the next 20 minutes. Link: This 3-D Simulation Shows Why Social Distancing Is So Important Actualización: Parecía exageración mi comentario. Hay nuevos indicios que apoyan esta idea.  Adding to growing evidence that the novel coronavirus can spread through air, scientists have identified genetic markers of the virus in airborne droplets, many with diameters smaller than one-ten-thousandth of an inch. That had been previously demonstrated in laboratory experiments, but now Chinese scientists studying real-world conditions report that they captured tiny droplets containing the genetic markers of the virus from the air in two hospitals in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak started. Their findings were published Monday...

Hay strip clubs virtuales. Gente paga por estar en clubes nocturnos generados en Zoom. 

Creo que todos están un poco perdidos. Sus reflexiones tan solo dan para columnas de opinión. No van al fondo, como en tratado filosófico. Link:  Cómo están pensando los filósofos la crisis global que provocó el coronavirus

The equipment — well, that was its own story. American medicine is littered with machines designed for testing. But they lay idle because the companies that made them were failing to supply the reagents they needed to work. UCSF itself had a machine, called the Panther, capable of processing 1,400 tests a day, but it was just sitting there unused for this very reason. “Big clinical testing machines are designed on the razor/razor blade model,” says DeRisi. “You can’t use them without their razors.” His graduate students either built the machines they needed themselves or grabbed wherever they could find that might be adapted. “Here is the frightening aspect of the global supply chain,” says DeRisi. “When there is a surge in demand, inventory goes to zero.” Link:  The Covid Test Lab That Could Save America

When researchers reported last month that the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic survives for days on glass and stainless steel but dies within hours after landing on copper, the only thing that surprised Bill Keevil was that the pathogen lasted so long on copper. Keevil, a microbiology researcher at the University of Southampton (U.K.), has studied the antimicrobial effects of copper for more than two decades. He has watched in his laboratory as the simple metal slew one bad bug after another. He began with the bacteria that causes Legionnaire's Disease and then turned to drug-resistant killer infections like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). He tested viruses that caused worldwide health scares such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the Swine Flu (H1N1) pandemic of 2009. In each case, copper contact killed the pathogen within minutes. Link:  Copper’s Virus-Killing Powers Were Known Even to the Ancients

The closing of restaurants, hotels and schools has left some farmers with no buyers for more than half their crops. And even as retailers see spikes in food sales to Americans who are now eating nearly every meal at home, the increases are not enough to absorb all of the perishable food that was planted weeks ago and intended for schools and businesses. The amount of waste is staggering. The nation’s largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America, estimates that farmers are dumping as many as 3.7 million gallons of milk each day. A single chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs every week. Many farmers say they have donated part of the surplus to food banks and Meals on Wheels programs, which have been overwhelmed with demand. But there is only so much perishable food that charities with limited numbers of refrigerators and volunteers can absorb. Link: Dumped Milk, Smashed Eggs, Plowed Vegetables: Food Waste of the Pandemic + Actualización:  Why farmers are dumpin...